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MEMBER DIARY

Time for a “well regulated militia” in Arizona?

For almost a century, liberals have been attempting to use the qualifying language of the 2nd Amendment to argue that it restricts, rather than expands, the fundamental right of the People to “keep and bear arms” – supposedly limiting gun ownership to only those serving in “a well regulated militia…” But they may have set a Constitutional trap that could soon snap shut on their own ankles.

While any serious reading of the speeches, notes, letters, or comments of the Founding Fathers would dispel the silly notion that the 2nd Amendment was meant to limit the basic human right to defend oneself, let’s just for a moment consider what might happen if States decide to call the Left on their own view and establish actual state ordered militias.

“Arizona has enacted a law that enables state and local police to support federal immigration enforcement, in a carefully circumscribed manner. This moderate statute is under vicious attack by the Obama administration and assorted amnesty advocates. Yet Arizona and her sister states in the Southwest could take dramatically stronger actions to bring order to the border. And they would have both history and the Constitution on their side.”

And what action could that be? He goes on:

“Arizona can form and expand its own state militia. Such forces were common when our nation was founded, and the Second Amendment recognizes that a “well-regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State.” In short, Arizona and other states can raise and arm their own military forces.”

And yes, Virginia, this would clearly be legal under the Constitution:

“…militias organized and armed by a state may go to war when the state has been invaded or is in imminent danger. This is clear under Article I, and plainly justified when the federal government has deliberately failed to protect against invasion as required by Article IV. As Joseph Story explains in his treatise on the Constitution, the prohibition against states engaging in war is “wisely” limited by “exceptions sufficient for the safety of the states, and not justly open to the objection of being dangerous to the Union.”

Few would try to deny that Arizona is facing a threat to the safety of its state, and taking such action to protect its boarders would hardly be “dangerous to the Union.” And many other states are facing similar problems wrought by unfettered illegal immigration.

Which brings us back to my original thought – can you imagine the anti-gun American Left, who for so long have tried to claim that the “real” purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to arm state sponsored militias, now opposing dozens of governors for doing precisely that – forming state sponsored militias?